


Nightmare

by Nomadimouse



Series: pretend it's a seed [1]
Category: A Bug's Life (1998)
Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, I'm literally obsessed with Dot and Flik's sibling dynamic sorry not sorry, Nightmares, Pixar, Protective Big Brother Flik, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:35:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22235689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nomadimouse/pseuds/Nomadimouse
Summary: After the traumatic events of the grasshoppers' visit, Dot finds herself alone with her fears while the rest of the colony sleeps away. Or is she?
Relationships: Dot & Flik (A Bug's Life)
Series: pretend it's a seed [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920331
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	Nightmare

She awakes with a scream.

Dot’s hands ball into fists and her chest heaves with terror. She can still hear the sounds of the nightmare in her antennae: the whispering of the ants around her. The raspy breathing punctuated by shrieks of hunger. The thumping of the cruel heart in the chest behind her. The voice asking questions that drip with sarcasm.

_"What's the matter, you scared of grasshoppers?" Hopper chuckles darkly, placing her in his lower hand so she's at eye level with his deranged pet. "You don't like Thumper?"_

Dot squeezes her eyes shut and tears slide down her cheeks. The darkness is only comforting for so long before images from her nightmare start to materialize in the light dancing behind her eyelids.

A sea of blue and gray and purple bodies, shaking like clovers in the wind. Showers of dirt from above as feet burst through the ceiling. Green and brown faces twisted into grins and scowls. A pair of eyes, one yellow and one gray, a scar above the latter from a bird's beak. Two crazed brown eyes above thorn-sharp teeth.

Dot opens her eyes again and the images melt away, but her heart pounds just as hard as before. She reaches up and begins tracing the veins in the leaf canopy above her, a coping habit she’s had ever since she was little.

A horrifying thought crosses her mind.

What if they didn't all leave? What if some of them are hiding in her room, waiting for her to fall asleep again so they can attack?

Dot sits up and wraps her petal quilt around her whole body, leaving only her eyes uncovered, then dares to check. A quick glance around her bedroom reveals nothing but the Blueberry Troop posters on her walls and the cotton cushion that Aphie sometimes sleeps on.

Even though her room appears grasshopper-free, the knowledge that she is completely alone isn’t comforting either. She wants to cry out for her mom or even Atta like she usually does after a nightmare, but tonight she hesitates. Why should she expect them to come running to her aid when neither of them helped her when she needed it most?

No, the only ant Dot can count on is the one who stood up for her when the rest stood and watched Hopper torment her. She glances over at the pebble sitting beside her bed and feels the corners of her mouth lift ever so slightly.

" _Now, do you see our tree?" Flik says, spreading his arms wide._

 _Dot turns to look, holding the pebble he keeps insisting is a seed. Maybe Mr. Thorny's right when he says Flik spends_ _too much time under the sun._

_He keeps going, oblivious to her skepticism. "Everything that made that giant tree is already contained inside this tiny little seed. All it needs is some time, a little bit of sunshine and rain, and voila!"_

_Her eyebrows raise._ " _This_ rock _will be a tree?" That wasn’t the way it worked according to Mr. Soil._

" _Seed to tree. You've gotta work with me here, alright?" he says, taking the pebble from her hands. "Okay, so you might not feel like you can do much now, but that's just because… well, you're not a tree yet.”_

_He places his finger under Dot’s chin and lifts it so their eyes meet. “You just have to give yourself some time. You're still a seed."_

_He’s smiling down at her, proud of himself for giving such an inspiring pep talk. She knows she should just go along with the dumb metaphor, but she can’t help herself. Annoying him is just too fun._

" _But it's a rock.”_

" _I know it's a rock!" Flik cries, releasing her chin and flailing his arms in exasperation. "Don't you think I know a rock when I see a rock?! I've spent a lot of time around rocks!"_

_Dot has never had a big brother, but she supposes this is sort of what it would be like._

_"You're weird," she giggles, cradling his homemade telescope to her chest. "But I like you."_

Still smiling at the memory, Dot crawls out from beneath her blanket and picks up the rock-slash-seed before venturing into the tunnel outside her bedroom. She's a little less afraid now, but she's also wide awake. Flik once told her that taking a walk around the anthill calms his nerves when he has trouble sleeping, so maybe it will work for her too.

Darkness doesn't usually bother Dot, what with living underground and all, but tonight the long stretch of dimly lit tunnel makes her uneasy. A shudder goes down her spine every time she walks by the gaping holes that lead to other parts of the anthill. They would make the perfect hiding spots for grasshoppers.

As she passes by the entrance to Atta's bedchamber, Dot’s thoughts wander back to Flik. She can tell he likes her sister from the way he's always trying to impress her with his inventions. Based on the way Atta treats him, she doesn’t return the feelings. Dot doesn't understand why she can’t at least be nice to him, but then again, she stopped trying to understand her older sister a while ago – when she started getting mean and bossy because she was so "stressed out" all the time from training to be queen.

Besides, Atta isn’t the only one who’s mean to Flik. It seems like the whole colony talks about him when he’s not around. The boys in Dot’s class are especially vicious, although she’s pretty sure they’re just repeating what they hear their parents say. She once punched one of them in the nose when she overheard him say all the ants would be better off if Flik got swallowed up by a bird. When her mother demanded why, Dot told her it was because he was making fun of her shortness again. Even her mother had little patience for Flik’s antics, and Dot didn’t think she would see defending his honor as a worthy cause for violence.

Dot doesn’t care what others think. Flik deserves a lot more credit than he gets for his inventions, even if they do cause problems sometimes. Like making the tunnels cave in, or turning all the council members pink, or almost squishing Atta with a stalk… _twice_ (although she didn't mind that one too much). And even though everyone else is mad at him now for knocking the offering stone over and upsetting Hopper, Dot knows it was an accident.

 _Hopper._ Just the thought of his name sends a sharp flash of fear through her stomach. Before he and his gang left, Hopper promised to come back for the rest of the food "when the last leaf falls." That means Dot will have to face him all over again. And Thumper, too. Maybe they’ll even come looking for her.

The darkness of the tunnel suddenly feels more menacing than before, the fluorescent mushrooms casting eerie shadows along the dirt walls. Dot's knees tremble and her heart is beating so hard she can hear it in her antennae. Tired or not, all she wants right now is to burrow under her quilt in the safety of her bedroom.

She's about to turn around and do just that when a shift in the shadows catches her eye, followed by the unmistakable sound of footsteps.

She is not alone.

Dot’s scream is cut short by a hand over her mouth. She feels another around her middle and remembers the feeling of Hopper's fingers curling around her waist.

He's back. He came back early to kidnap her and feed her to Thumper.

She squirms in his grasp and tries to cry for help through the palm pressing down on her mouth. Hopper shushes her, urging her to be quiet so she doesn't wake up the entire colony.

 _Not that it matters,_ she thinks bitterly. _Even if I did, they would probably just stand and watch like they did before._

Dot remembers the pebble in her hands just as her feet leave the floor. Without looking down she drops it.

She hears a soft thud followed by a cry of pain, and the hands that are holding her let go. As soon as Dot’s feet hit the ground she takes off running through the tunnel, the pounding of her own footsteps echoing around her.

 _“Come on wings,”_ she whispers, pumping them harder than she ever has before, but as always she remains flightless. She remembers the terrifying sound of a hundred grasshopper wings beating at once and wonders why Hopper hasn’t used his own to catch up with her.

Dot reaches the thick root that spirals through the center of the anthill and begins to descend it. A strong sense of déjà vu overcomes her as she passes the ancient drawings carved into its walls. She had passed these same carvings earlier in the day, spurred on by the sound of the warning shell. At the time she had no idea what lay in store for her, comforted by the feeling of her mother’s hand in her own.

Dot enters the large, empty room that serves as the bunker. She’s halfway to the stone reserved for the colony's royalty before it hits her.

She's reliving the scene from her nightmare.

Dot can picture the gangling forms of the grasshoppers scattered around the room. She can hear Thumper's screams as he strains against his leash. She can feel the cage of Hopper's hands around her, carrying her toward his monster.

" _Leave her alone!"_

_Dot feels Hopper’s fingers tense at the sound. A hush falls over the bunker. Even Thumper grows silent as Hopper turns toward the source of the command, facing the ant who dared to challenge him._

_Flik stands in a circle of light apart from the other ants, his hand raised as though reaching out for her. He and Hopper stare each other down for several seconds before Hopper begins walking toward him, surprisingly calm given the situation._

_Terrifyingly calm._

_Flik slowly lowers his hand as the grasshopper grows near. Dot can see his courage visibly shrinking. She almost wishes he hadn’t spoken up and put himself in danger for her sake. Almost._

_She feels a hand clamp around her scalp and finds herself dangling in the air above her friend._

" _You want her? Then go ahead, take her."_

_Now it’s Hopper's turn to challenge him. Dot’s whimpers are the only sound in the room as she waits with everyone else to see what Flik will do. For one fearful moment, she thinks he might actually try to take her from the grasshopper towering above him._

_Then he lowers his eyes._

" _No?" Hopper sneers, satisfaction in his voice. He moves the hand holding Dot to his side and points at the ants quivering behind Flik. "Then get back in line."_

_The inventor obeys, looking more ashamed than afraid. Dot’s relief over Flik’s safety lasts for only a second before she realizes she’s once again at Hopper’s mercy. She holds her breath, waiting for him to summon Thumper to finish the job. Instead, he drops her._

_So she picks herself up off the floor and runs._

"It's me, it's me! Dot, it's just me. It's me, Dot. It's okay. You're okay."

Dot doesn't remember hearing Hopper catch up to her or feeling his hands wrap around her again. She also doesn’t remember when she started screaming.

He keeps saying her name. How does he know her name?

Understanding hits her just as the hands on her shoulders gently turn her around. Hopper's mismatched eyes are replaced by a pair of blue ones much like her own, eyes the color of the sky or the bellflowers that bloom in the springtime.

She's never been happier to see those eyes.

"Flik?" Dot whispers, reaching her hand out to brush her fingers along his face. She has to be sure this isn't another dream.

"It's really me, Dot. I promise." Flik smiles and flicks her antenna. "I was having trouble sleeping, so I came out to take a walk and saw you wandering around the tunnel. What are you doing up so late?"

His tone is somewhat stern but mostly concerned, like that of a parent or big brother. Dot tries to answer him, but fear and relief have stolen her words away. Her bottom lip begins to quiver.

"Hey, hey, hey.” Flik wipes away the tears budding in the corners of Dot’s eyes with his thumb and reaches a hand behind his back. "You know you dropped something back there? At first I thought it was just a rock, but on second glance…"

He reveals the pebble she had purposefully dropped on his foot when she thought it belonged to Hopper. Dot dazedly takes it from him, giggling a little at his corny joke but more at her own silly attempt at self-defense.

Then she sees the purple bruise forming on Flik’s toes and bursts into tears.

His arms are around her in a second, cradling the back of her head with his hand the way her mother does when she's afraid. Dot buries her face in his chest and allows herself to cry, the events of the day _and_ the night catching up with her. Flik shushes her, but it’s the sort of shushing meant to make her feel better, not be quiet.

“I...I had a nightmare,” she finally says between muffled sobs. “About Hopper, and Thumper…”

“Oh, Dot,” Flik breathes. She can hear the sadness in his voice, mixed with something that sounds like guilt. “I’m sorry. That must have been so scary.”

“No,” Dot mumbles. “The scariest part was that you weren’t there.”

Flik doesn’t say anything, but Dot feels his arms tighten around her. They remain this way for a long time, her sniffles the only sound in the room.

She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she feels her cheek resting on Flik’s shoulder and opens her eyes to see those ancient carvings again. He’s carrying her back to her bedroom, singing a lullaby that’s so off-key it takes everything in her not to laugh. Normally she hates being babied, but tonight is an exception.

Dot has no idea what this summer will bring. She doesn’t know when the last leaf will fall, or what will be in store for them when it does. So for now she closes her eyes and lets herself believe that as long as Flik is around, she has nothing to fear.


End file.
